Can I trash items in the downloads folder or do I have to keep them in safe folders?

Dear All
I have downloaded Skype software which I am still using. Can I trash the items for it in the downloads folder or must I move them to keep them safe?
With best wishes
Michael Yeow

Although you can (and should) certainly trash anything in the Downloads folder, note that there are some considerations before doing so.
First, some apps require uninstallers to remove them, and in many cases the uninstaller is stored on the original disk image that was downloaded. You can always re-download the software to get the uninstaller, but it's always possible that the uninstaller for a future version won't do the job properly. So if the disk image contains an uninstaller and you think you may want to uninstall that software at some point in the future, it may be wise to keep a copy of the disk image file.
Secondly, some apps that you purchase may not be easily re-downloadable. In those cases, you will want to protect yourself against having to pay to re-purchase or re-download the app if something happens and you have to reinstall the app. (Like if you buy a new machine, or if your hard drive dies, or your system becomes corrupt requiring an "erase and install.") Keep a copy of the downloaded disk image file.
In cases where you want to keep the installer, you will probably want to move it somewhere other than the Downloads folder. (Keeping the Downloads folder empty is a good idea.) You will also want to make sure it's backed up, like the rest of your system, so it's available in the future if/when you need it.

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How do I clear the downloads folder?

How do I clear the downloads folder? I swear there used to be an option for this when I right clicked on the downloads folder that is on my bottom bar but I don't see one now. This is making me crazy.
Also, when I click on the bottom bar Downloads folder to display the items in the Downloads folder, I've selected it to be arranged as a fan and by the date added. I've downloaded two copies of the same item and did this back to back because I didn't see the first download in the folder once I'd downloaded it. I don't see the first of the two downloads unless I open the whole folder in its own window. Shouldn't I see them both at the bottom of the list since they are the two most recent downloads? I'd accidentally downloaded duplicate copies previously and it had displayed them in this manner.
Please help!

The best way to delete is just open them in finder. Mark them all and delete.
In the fan, you can select the sort order by right click (cntl click) the download folder and choosing "sort by" date added.
Regards,
Captfred

I have Final Cut X and Adobe progras on my Imac. Can I copy those programs into a Macbook or will I have to buy them or my Macbook? Completely tech illiterate.

I have Final Cut Pro and various Adobe programs on my Imac. I will need to get a Macbook in the next few months and need to know if I can share these programs between the 2 computers or will I have to buy them for the Macbook. I bought my Imac used on Ebay with the programs already installed on it. I do not have any discs for the programs. I am new to computing and completely tech illiterate.
Thanks for your help.

You need to buy them.
Software which came on disks can't be reinstalled without them.
Software which was downloaded from the Mac App Store is tied to the downloader's Apple ID.
(109585)

Is there a way of displaying the various item in my Downloads folder as icons arranged in order of Date Created, such that the most recent items appear at the bottom, rather than the top?

Is there a way of displaying the various item in my Downloads folder as icons arranged in order of Date Created, such that the most recent items appear at the bottom, rather than the top? I know this can be done when they are displayed as a list, but I want icons!

Hi geezer,
when you open your 'Downloads' folder choose 'View' in the Menu bar and choose:
'as List'
'Show View Options'
In 'View options' window you tick:
'Always open in list view'
'Date Modified', or
'Date created'
Now inside the 'Downloads' folder click on 'Date Created' (or 'Date Modified')
column to get items alined from oldest to newest date (or reverse)…

Can the contents of the Downloads folder be deleted?

Can the contents of the Downloads folder be deleted in order to regain storage space?

Hi KMess1948
The Downloads folder is just a convenient place to put stuff that you downloaded from various sources. It's contents can be deleted at will. You could of course create an archive on a separate harddisk or memory stick to keep for instance study material, or stuff that you would use more frequently. The rest of the stuff could be trashed at will.
I keep three achives, OS X and Combo Updates including and since SL, Documents, & important downloaded documents besides the normal backup stuff.
Download folder gets emptied regularly.
Have fun
Leo

Safari puts a copy of downloads onto my desktop even though i have the downloads folder specified as the save downloads to location in Safari preferences. How can I stop this from happening?

I dont' want to have to keep manually moving each download off of the desktop. The downloads folder is selected as the location where i would like downloads to go. They are downloaded there but an additional copy keeps showing up on my desktop. Help!

What are dmgs? I downloaded Microsoft Silverlight and the icon showed up on my desktop. I tried moving it to trash but it wanted to delete the whole program instead of just a shortcut. I opened the general tab in Finder's preferences and the only options that were selected to show up on desktop were External Drives and Cds, Dvds, and Ipods. THanks so much!

How can I save a file in the Downloads folder and automatically have it opened?

Often, I'd like to download a file, save it to my Downlaods folder and have it opened right away.
Currently, you can only decide between the two options "open" or "save to...". There's seemlingly no way Firefox can do both at once.
I know I can download it, open the downloads manager and open it manually. But when working with over a dozen documents a day, that doesn't quite do the trick.
In Chrome, you only have to click twice: Once for downloading and once for opening it from the download bar on the bottom of the screen. You do not have to open a download manager.

Yeah, thanks but that's not what I was trying to ask.
I know that you can save and open a document by performing these three steps:
1. Confirming to save a file to the Downloads folder
2. Open the download manager by clicking the temporarily green arrow
3. Clicking on the downloaded file
What I would like to know is whether or not it is possible to have Firefox open a saved file ''automatically''. At the moment, if I choose to open it automatically, it is only saved to my temp folder.
It would be great though if it was saved to my Downloads folder ''and'' opened with the respective program on my pc. Is there a way to do this?

After downloading an exe file, I can't double click to run it or right click to open/open in container. It does't show up in the download folder either.

Helping a friend. After clicking "Save", the exe shows up in the Download manager, but you can't click on it to run it or right click to either open/open in folder (both are grayed out). If you look into the download folder, there's nothing there.

It is possible that your anti-virus software is corrupting the downloaded files or otherwise interfering with downloading files by Firefox.
Try to disable the real-time (live) scanning of files in your anti-virus software temporarily to see if that makes downloading work.
See "Disable virus scanning in Firefox preferences - Windows"
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_save_or_download_files

Why can't I access the download folder in time machine?

When I access history in Time Machine the Download folder is grayed out and I can't access the files. Is there another location I can look to find those files that have been downloaded using Safari?

Firefox will not appear in the Market for most phones with incompatible hardware. I believe the Motorola Bravo is supported. You can check if your phone is supported here:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Platforms/Android
On some supported devices, a bug prevents Firefox from appearing in the Market. This may be related to the recent Market update. You can go to Settings/Applications and uninstall the Market update, then find and install Firefox.
Or, you can download the app directly from here:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/releases/4.0b3/android-r7/multi/
(Note: To download the app directly for an AT&T phone, you will have to search for instructions on how to "sideload" the APK file, since AT&T disables the option to install from non-Market sources.)

How can I stop the Downloads folder from constantly reappearing?

Every time I open or restart Firefox 9, the Downloads folder in My Documents keeps recreating itself. I have downloads set to always ask me where to go, and I have absolutely no need of a special Downloads folder. How can I get FF to stop creating this folder? Annoying to have to delete it every time - and I like FF to do what I tell it to.

See:
*[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=474718 Bug 474718] – Empty "Downloads" folder should not be created when opening main page of options dialog with a custom download directory set
*[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=649940 Bug 649940] – Opening the preferences dialog with the default settings active always creates the "Downloads" folder
(please do not comment in bug reports)

How do I empty all the files in the "Downloads" folder ?

How do I empty all the files in the "Downloads" folder ? Can they all be deleted at once?

PS: when you look into the menu bar commands by mouse, you may note
there are keyboard shortcuts to perform the same tasks; such as they are.
*Edit> Select all* = uses 'Command + A' keys to do this, without mouse/menu.
And, it can be done quickly by keyboard. +(this will select all, for the next step)+
You would have to select the folder to be edited; yet there also are other key
board commands to select items, folders, applications, etc all without a mouse.
Once you choose items in a folder or other location, you can then use a
keyboard command to Move them to the Trash; from there, Empty Trash
with a three-key command; all without use of the mouse.
The keys to *Move to Trash* looks like it is 'Command + Delete'. Some key-
boards have two marked delete keys, so you may have to try both. The
+small delete key+ has an icon with right-facing x in a box.
The three keys, to *Empty Trash* via keyboard instead of menu bar/mouse
appear to be the combination of 'up-arrow, command, delete.'
Understanding some of the iconography of symbols used to indicate function,
or what keys to use, as indicated by icons instead of words, is not too hard.
There are articles and web pages which show various keyboard shortcuts.
Here's an example, from one of several I've bookmarked over a few years.
This one has images and shows what the key shortcut symbols mean.
• Mastering Keyboard Shortcuts: (from myfirstmac site)
http://www.myfirstmac.com/index.php/mac/articles/mastering-keyboard-shortcuts
• Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343
However, if you have anything you may want to keep before mass deleting, be
sure to move it into another folder. +re: The docked folders in Leopard+ 10.5 have
one .PDF in each, about each of the purposed folders. I haven't deleted mine yet.
{And I've added another folder into the dock near the Trash for my own alias items
and the original is on the hard disk drive (one user) or could be put into an account
folder so it would not have permissions or privilege issues with a second account.}
I'd thought about those 'keyboard symbols' after the first posting; but,
had to take an elder parent on several errands that took quite awhile.
PS: there probably are ways to use AppleScript and Automator to handle folder contents.
Good luck & happy computing!

How do I add the Downloads folder to my dock?

I updated to Mavericks (OS X) and now I can't drag and drop anything onto my dock. Prior to upgrade, every once in a while, the Downloads folder would disappear from the dock, but I could just drag and drop it back in.
Now when I try to add to my dock, all that happens is that the folder is removed from the Sidebar in Finder.
I also don't have a dotted line beside the trash can (it's a solid line).. When I drag the folder onto the dock, the space between the solid line and the trash can expands, but I just end up removing stuff from my sidebar.
I feel like I've completely missed something..
Thanks in advance!

You might want to consider starting a new discussion. Since this one is marked solved, less people are likely to look at it. You can link to this one.
Finder/Preferences/Sidebar -s the home folder checked there?

My downloads are not appearing in the download folder

(using mac) My download window--I can click on items that are there and "show in finder" and then they appear in the finder...but otherwise, my downloads folder has no new items in it and even if I search with the right file name, it will not appear.
I recently--the same date that the most recent file is appearing--went from one Mac to the other. No idea what is happening..

Did you check the settings for the download manager?
*Firefox > Preferences > Privacy > History: "Remember download history"
You can also see all downloads in the Downloads folder the Library (History > Show All History).
You can also check the browser.download.manager.retention pref on the about:config page and make sure that it still has the default value of 2 (manually remove downloads).
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config

Could someone clarify some questions I have about the download folder?

I use my computer mainly for audio recording. I'm constantly downloading updates to virtual instruments, updates for programs, new applications, etc. Once I download something and install it, can I delete the file from the download folder? If it's an application, do I need to drag it from the download folder into applications?
Also, there are lots of .dmg files. I've always wondered about these. Once I have opened it and installed the program, is there any need to save them? Or can I trash them? As you can see from the screen shot, some of those files are really big and I'd like to get rid of them.

If you no longer need a downloaded file you can delete it.
Downloaded applications need to be installed in the Applications folder. You do not drag anything from the Downloads folder to the Applications folder unless you are draggin an Application from an archive or disc image.

Deleting in the download folder

I am new to mac. I now have a bunch of stuff in the download folder. Do I need to delete these and if so, is there a quick and dirty way to do it or must I drag each file to the dump seperately?

Hello becky:
Welcome to Apple discussions.
You do not need to delete them, but after you are finished with the download, they clutter things up. I always delete them.
Open the download folder (select view in finder). Right click (or command-click) on all of the items. Select the file menu from the menu bar. Select "move to trash."
Barry
Message was edited by: Barry Hemphill

Can I trash items in the downloads folder or do I have to keep them in safe folders?

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